[Sca-cooks] sauerkraut

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

This weekend i camped at the Principality of the Mists Coronet. Our 
current Prince is Russian, no really, he mundanely came to the US 
from Russia. And he decreed a Russian pot-luck and party on the Eric 
on Saturday night. We were requested to bring enough to feed 12

All this talk of sauerkraut stimulated me to make an adaptation of a 
modern Russian soup - someone suggested it is called shchi, but i'm 
not sure. - i'm sure i made enough for many more than that :-)

Anyway - i didn't use a written recipe, but...

1 bag of "baby" carrots (as a time saver)
parsnips equal in weight to the carrots
vegetable soup base (or broth of your choice...
----- an excellent cook with a Russian persona says he prefers chicken broth
----- i've heard some cooks say they prefer veal stock)
3 small cans chick peas/ garbanzo beans
1 large bottle of German sauerkraut (32 ounces?)
1 TB or more dill weed or more to taste
1 TB. caraway seeds or more to taste
1 lb full fat sour cream

Peel and cube parsnips.
Put cubed parsnip and "baby" carrots into stock or water...i dunno, 
maybe 3 quarts... if using water, add vegetable broth concentrate (my 
preference is for "Better than Bouillon" brand).
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until tender.
While they're cooking add dill weed and caraway seeds - i used dried dill.
Drain and rinse canned garbanzo beans.
When carrots and parsnips are tender, add garbanzos and sauerkraut - 
the brand i had was packed into the jar *very* tightly and had very 
little excess liquid which i just dumped in.
Let stand until slightly cooled.
Serve with sour cream - i just stirred the whole pint in since it was potluck.

For home service, you could stir in some of the sour cream and serve 
the rest on the side, letting diners help themselves. OR you could 
dish the soup in the kitchen, and garnish each dish with a dollop of 
sour cream and a sprinkling of dill.

I made my soup around 3:30 AM on Saturday, then i drove to the event 
(about 2 hour drive, i got there around 8:30 AM) and i kept the pot 
of soup in the shade (it was near the ocean and had cool breezes - 
okay, it was windy - and was maybe in the low 70s in the sun). Dinner 
didn't start until around sundown...7:30 PM? I noticed that the dill 
flavor had increased in a very pleasant way.

I didn't add salt because so many of the ingredients were already 
salted. If you like, you could add some black or white pepper.
-- 
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita